Asus EAH2600PRO/HDTI/256M Graphics Card Review. Page 2

Graphics cards based on ATI Radeon HD 2600 are a good choice today for a contemporary multimedia system and are available in various modifications. We are going to introduce to you one of these solutions - a graphics card from Asus.

Package and Accessories

As opposed to more advanced graphics solutions, the EAH2600PRO is shipped in a standard-size and ascetically designed box.

It looks good, however, and you can’t call it gaudy or something. Besides a picture of a cute archer, there are captions on the box that tell you the type and amount of graphics memory, indicate HDCP support, and claim that the graphics card features an advanced cooler. ASUS promises a 20°C reduction of temperature in comparison with the reference cooler.

There is a thick cardboard tray inside the box. The graphics card lies in the largest compartment. Next to it there are discs and a user manual. The bottom compartment contains adapters and splitters. The EAH2600PRO comes with the following accessories:

DVI-I→D-Sub adapter;

Composite/YPbPr splitter;

Brief installation guide;

CD disk with drivers;

CD disk with full user’s manual (multi-lingual).

Although a DVI-I → HDMI adapter is listed on the manufacturer’s website among the accessories, it is missing in our kit, which is rather strange considering that the ATI Radeon HD 2600 suits best for multimedia PCs. Hopefully, it is a problem of our particular sample of the card. If it is not, ASUS should remove the mention of the adapter from the product description to avoid misleading the customer.

The user manual is a booklet, which is handier than a huge poster. It contains the basics of using the graphics cards. For details you can refer to the full manual you can find on the included disc.

So, the accessories aren’t numerous, especially for an ASUS product, but additional bonuses would have made the card more expensive. Moreover, the card has its special feature – it comes with quite a powerful cooler (for its class).